...and hatke pays

IIPM Ranked No. 1 B-School In Global Exposre - Zee...

Richard Branson is banking on his ability to charm the young and stylish to make his mark

‘Our first offering and the competition’s already seeing red…’ Now that’s what we call an entry, in Bollywood ishtyle. Yelling and shrieking its arrival, Virgin Mobile on March 10, took the readers of a leading Indian daily by surprise, when all the headlines on the first page were in the colour ‘red,’ instantly grabbing the eyeballs of all. What’s more, the ad became the talk of the town when the telecom company announced its whacky scheme of paying its subscribers for all the incoming calls that they receive.

With a host of telecom players already slugging it out, Virgin Mobile knew it would have to take a ‘hatke’ route. And here’s where the seeds were sowed to launch a mobile brand that revolves only around the youth. Prasad Narasimhan, CMO, Virgin Mobile explains, “Although there are many players, no one has been concentrating on this huge population, which has highest mobile usage. As a matter of fact, a youth talks twice more than the other people, SMSs around thrice as much and is also the first to try out any kind of VAS service.” So from day one, the strategy has been, to be ‘relevant to the youth,’ in everything that it does.

To be relevant to its target audience, apart from the traditional media, internet and outdoor have also been wisely deployed. Narasimhan further elaborates, “Rather than deploying the carpet bombing strategy, the idea is to be, where the youth is, like college campuses, movie halls, common hangout spots et al.” Even the schemes that Virgin Mobile is offering at present has been developed keeping in mind the young guns. It did not take much time for Virgin Mobile to unearth that the desi lads and lassies love to talk for hours on their ‘fone,’ but have limited pocket money for the same. And thus originated the idea of paying 10 paise for every 60 seconds of incoming call that they receive on their Virgin Mobile phone. “The response to this scheme has been overwhelming already,” avers Narasimhan. It gives them the freedom to bank the money, which can be used unconditionally (there is no asterisk that one can call from only a local number or just a Virgin Mobile). In the initial few weeks, Virgin Mobile was busy telling its customers ‘who they are.’ It is now slowly shifting its strategy to tell its customers that ‘what they can offer’ in terms of schemes. The next step will be to talk about the handsets that they would offer, as just like other CDMA players, Virgin Mobile too comes with bundled handsets.

While targetting the youth, VAS will eventually turn out to be a big differentiating factor. Till now Virgin Mobile has been offering simple VAS, which it has termed VBytes, but Narasimhan is quick to point out that Indian market at the moment is flooded with theme-driven VAS. “It would not be mere downloads that we seek to offer but breakthrough VAS options. Unless we do something breakthrough, we would be just another operator in the marketplace, avers Narsimhan, though not ready to divulge anything at the moment. Presently operators are spending huge chunks of money to promote their VAS services, so it would be interesting to watch out what Virgin Mobile plans to offer. But with its international experience, one would expect it to be a hatke kind of a service.

Surbhi Chawla

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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RCOM Ltd.’s arm

When IIPM comes to education, never compromise

Investee: RCOM Ltd.’s arm

Investor: Fortress Capital, HSBC, et al

Investment Value: $337.5 mn

According to Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, Chairman, RCOM, “We are excited about the tremendous growth potential in the Indian telecom infrastructure business. Our strategy to create a separate company for infrastructure businesses has resulted in tremendous unlocking of value for over two million RCOM shareholders. RTIL, as an independent telecom infrastructure provider, has significant growth potential and is on track to become the leading player in India. RTIL will be listed in the future and provide investors another attractive opportunity to participate in India’s incredible telecom growth.” RTIL has already filed the draft Red Herring prospectus with SEBI and would hit the capital market soon to raise an expected Rs.6,000 crores from the public.

Reliance Telecom Infrastructure Limited (RTIL), the hived-off tower business subsidiary of Reliance Communication (RCOM), shelled out 5% of its stake to seven investors – Fortress Capital, George Soros, Galleon, GLG Capital, HSBC, DA Capital and Newsilk – for Rs.14 billion in July last year. The deal put the valuation of its tower business at about Rs.270 billion. The Anil Ambani owned RCOM is one of the first telecom companies in India to separate its tower business. RTIL builds, owns and operates communications towers and related assets under long term contracts. The company intends to invest Rs.46.23 billion in setting up 16,000 towers by 2009.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

Read these article :-
B-schooled in India, Placed Abroad (Print Version)
IIPM in Financial times (Print Version)
IIPM makes business education truly global
The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM)
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For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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THE CRITICS

IIPM, GURGAON

“I have nothing against the car but I have reservation on the usage of the car. This (launch of the car) represents the bankruptcy of the government, policy makers and authorities in meeting social responsibilities.”

R. K. Pachauri

Nobel laureate

“Tatas were given land valued at Rs.1,000 crores, free, as also Rs.135 crores in incentives such as power and water. Everything is free. After getting so many things free, the Tatas should give 10 lakh cars free.”

Mamata Banerjee

Trinamool Congress supremo


“The fact is that the Rs.1 lakh car is now here, it will be exponential in terms of numbers growth. This just doesn’t let me sleep. This car will not lead to mobility or equity but add to congestion and pollution.”

Sunita Narain

Director, Centre for Science and Environment

“We will have to wait for the car to hit the markets as currently we don’t know the specifications, the features and the performance of the car.”

S. Nakanishi

MD, Maruti

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

Read these article :-
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Opposite sides of the spectrum

When IIPM comes to education, never compromise

What colour do you associate Coke with? Red?

Yes! It’s the red colour that makes it distinct and gives it a unique identity, apart from other factors like the brand name, flavour, shape of the bottle etc. After all, if Coke is evaluated as a brand, the colour red would be contributing 40% to its equity.

A question that comes to mind is – if Coke is red, then what colour is Pepsi associated with? Blue??

Pepsi tried to go blue. It wanted to associate itself with the colour blue. It was ready to shell out a neat $500 million (Rs.17.50 billion, approximately) to go blue. For 40 years, it has used the colour mix of red and white and blue so as to give it a distinct colour identity. Pepsi went to the extent of painting blue a concord supersonic jet to carry the colour message to bottlers around the world. This colour differentiation would help in giving Pepsi an identity distinct and different from Coke. To increase the association of the colour with the brand, Pepsi highlighted the colour blue in all its advertisements. What I’m trying to say here is that colours compete as much as brand names do. Close your mind’s eye and try to think of Coke – you will see a splash of red. Then think of Pepsi and you will, probably now, think of blue. If this exercise had been done a few years back, you would have been unable to decide whether Pepsi was blue or red.

What is it that made Pepsi turn electric blue? Is it then true that Pepsi’s erstwhile red and blue combination served just as a reminder of Coke? To cut a long story short, the bottom line is, when it comes to colours, be opposites if you are competitors. Many brands, consciously or otherwise, have followed this.

• Perk is blue while its competitor, Kit-Kat, is red.
• Kodak is yellow while the counterpart, Fuji, is green.
• Polo is green and blue while Minto is now red and yellow.
• Hertz picked up yellow, so Avis picked red.

There’s a powerful logic in selecting a colour that is opposite to that of your major competitor. It is more important to create a separate brand identity with the help of colour than it is to use the right symbolic colour. To put it simply, consider this example. For an eco-friendly product the right symbolic colour is probably green, but if your competitor has chosen it first, it’s best to avoid green and choose a contrasting colour. This way, you shall be saved the pain of being a ‘me-too’ product, and would have a distinct identity. Remember, Pepsi learnt it the hard way... after 40 years!

What is brand recall? It’s finally your ability to stand out in a crowd of similar sounding, similar looking products. To be successful, a brand needs to stick out like a sore thumb in the market place. This immediately makes it more noticeable and memorable. Think of the corporate world where everybody is dressed in blue or black suits. An orange suit would immediately be noticed and remembered. Similarly, in the market place, a colour strikingly different from your competitor’s will make you stick out, get you noticed and remembered. With the help of advertising, you could strengthen this association of the desired colour with your brand and help it build strong colour equity.

If you are the first to enter the market, you have a choice of which colour to associate your brand with. When you are second, it has to be a colour strikingly different from your competitor’s. When you have the freedom to choose, a colour should be chosen with great care. Colours influence us in a variety of ways. They seem to have a direct physical impact on us. Donald Kaufman conducted experiments to show how colour influenced our daily lives. He found that when we are placed in a room with red light and all of a sudden the light is switched to blue, instantaneously, our body temperature falls.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

Read these article :-
B-schooled in India, Placed Abroad (Print Version)
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George Wills, Regional Operations Manager, Porsche (Middle East, Africa & India)

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What’s your India strategy?

We have a bag full of ideas, but we will look at the market closely. After Delhi, we are contemplating to build centres in high-potential regions such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and so on.

Is Porsche planning an assembling plant in India?

We do not intend to produce or assemble Porsches here. These coveted cars are known for and expected by consumers to be ‘Made in Germany’.

As compared to China, how has the Indian market matured for Porsche?

There is an evident change in the Indian market. However, what is different in the Chinese scenario is that the Chinese are making things overnight and there is tremendous wealth created there. Nevertheless, India too is a high potential market, just like China, but things do not move as fast here as we might expect it to be.

About prospective launch of track speck Porsches?

Specialised cars like the Porsche 911 GT3 & GT3 RS are not the first car of the prospective customer. These cars are specifically used and most certainly are not meant to be driven every day because they are hard set. But the market for such cars in India will also grow in the near future.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
When IIPM comes to education, never compromise
IIPM, GURGAON
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Why Study Abroad When IIPM Gives You 3 global Advantages!